Workers disapprove TUPRAS imposing one hour earlier start of workday

Turan KARA
Eren SARAN
İzmir

Taking the pandemic as an opportunity to further increase the absolute surplus value, Turkey’s  biggest monopoly, Koc Holding had communicated in an e-mail that it would introduce a series of changes in the working conditions at the refineries beginning on December 02, 2020. The changes imposed by the holding includes -moving the start of the first shift from 8:00AM to 7:00AM, -vanquishing the worker’s right to health breaks by shifting the start of the morning shift from 8:00AM to 7:00AM, and -forceful use of annual vacation entitlements.

At TUPRAS (oil refinery complex), a subsidiary of Koc Holding in Izmir, the attempt of moving the start of workday to 7:00AM was met by workers with intense reaction. Workers in Petrol-Is membership agreed not to approve the new workday start time of TUPRAS.

At the workplaces where Petrol-Is, associated with Turk-Is, is unionized, the workers proclaimed that -no workers would get on the shuttle-services scheduled for 7:00AM shift start, instead they would continue to commute to be at work place at 8:00AM. Workers at TUPRAS refineries are moving per the decisions of the union headquarters.

EARLIER START OF WORKDAY WAS IMPOSED AT FOUR REFINERIES

Petrol-Is Union provided an update this morning through its branch management bodies at Izmir, Kirikkale, Batman, and Aliaga. In all four refineries, a unanimous decision was adopted against the employer’s prerogative to start the workday an hour earlier. Accordingly, workers announced that they would not change their working hours, instead start working at 8:00AM.

Providing an update to the morning shift, Ahmet Oktay, the chairperson of Petrol-Is Aliaga Branch, emphasized that the workers’ and the union’s objections to the employer’s prerogative were not taken into consideration despite the injunctions made, and that they had not agreed to moving the start of the shifts to an hour earlier commencing on December 02. Representing the Union Headquarters and four branches,  noting that workers would start the workday at 8:00AM against the employer’s imposition, Oktay said “We will not get on the shuttle-services the employer so organized that we would start the workday at 7:00AM. We will arrive at work with our own transportation at the same time as we have always done. We will get to work in this manner until such time that we get the employer to acknowledge that its prerogative is wrong.”

Indicating that the management of TUPRAS, having a profit of 87 Billion TL in 2019, scoring the heighest profit during the pandemic, wanted to carry on with this prerogative under the allegation that it lost money, “Allegedly, the employer is putting before us such a prerogative under the pretext that ‘they lost money, and therefore they have to utilize their workforce in more designed and efficient manner.’ Workers are not anybody’s ‘ to be designed entity.’ We are not robots. We are not monotone humans,” Oktay said.

THERE REMAINED NO COMPROMISES TO RESOLVE ISSUES

Entered into the agenda due to the pandemic, the new shift system and the re-organization of work were mentioned as ‘new shift system’ in the new collective agreement concluded by the High Commission of Arbitration. Workers said “Hope for a compromise was always kept. Coercions on us never seized while the union was in hopes of a compromise. There is a cessation in the union since the last collective agreement. This also caused a bit of reaction from everybody. Both sides however have already exhausted the opportunity to be able to arrive at any resolution through compromises. Besides, Koc has already started to handle everything by directives. It imposes those conditions not mutually agreed on. This brings about a different situation. We are increasing our voice by taking a unified stand together with four branches. Everybody is aligned with the decisions to struggle. Union headquarters management will have the final say, the last action will be on the management, the decisive, result oriented steps are necessary. The issue should be closed without lasting too long, and it should be evident to everyone that nothing can be done without the consent of TUPRAS workers.”